I am helping a friend get ready for a million-dollar mediation - and we are wrestling with a complex issue that appears to be mathematical in nature, akin to the Prisoner's Dilemma, and possibly a missing piece of AGI.
The situation is complicated, but in a way like Israel or Ireland where two groups think they own the same thing, so they get together to discuss how this might be unfairly divided between them. My group sees the other as robbers who have acted fraudulently to secure their position, while the other group has papers in place giving them effective title - but with a 20-year wait to get anything. The mediation is how to divide up the money now, with some dangerous but uncertain leverage to ruin the robbers in court if they don't act reasonably. This seems to all boil down to “robber’s rules”. Why don’t robbers routinely kill their victims and strip them of their valuables? This is addressed in *Adventures in Arabia* by William Seabrook. There are several reasons – that all seem to sort of apply here: 1. Other robbers will see killers as being without principle, and so won’t trust them to fairly divide the booty. Therefore, it is more profitable to first kill the prospective killer – instead of the victim. 2. Blood is SO messy – when simply the threat of death can probably accomplish the same thing. 3. If you don’t leave your victim with SOMETHING he might perish, and his death would be blamed on you. 4. If you are too greedy, others will hear about it and mount a posse to come after you. 5. If he has powerful friends, this could result in your own death. In a real-life incident described in his book, the author was accosted out in the middle of the dessert by a band of bandits. He produced a note written in Arabic he had been given to address such situations. The robbers carefully read the note – and sent him on his way without robbing him. How could any words possibly have turned such a situation around? His next goal was to find out precisely what the note said… I once had a related incident, where in high-school I was accosted by a gang of 5 teenage switch-blade-carrying delinquents – very much like the last scene in *Westside Story*. I was able to walk away uninjured. I starting by challenging their leader… I would think that SOMEONE has studied this sort of thing in the past - does anyone here know of such a study? Mediations seem SO much like ball squeezing contests. So, what is the winning strategy? With no agreement my group gets nothing, and the other group must wait 20 years to get it all. With an agreement, we cut this baby in two according to agreed upon percentages. There seems to be two camps: 1. Demand 100%, or else Russian Roulette in court with maybe a 50:50 chance, and 2. Divide it in half or ??? There will doubtless be head games, Mutt and Jeff setups, etc., as this thing unfolds. I posted this here because SO much of what people here expect an AGI to resolve are disputes much like this one. Thoughts? Steve Richfield ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T5dd6b6c7d648588e-Mcc256f26dd21539cf369f97e Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
